Vince Guaraldi rarely sang, but when he crooned over an East Bay funk beat on “Little Birdie,” he made a song so irresistible that it eventually inspired someone to turn it into a one-hour loop. The apex of A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, “Little Birdie” chronicles Snoopy and Woodstock as they attempt to set up a table for Thanksgiving dinner (and get in a fight with a beach chair). Guaraldi responds to their antics, wondering why Woodstock flies upside down and his friend “can’t do nothin’ right” while a muted trumpet interjects laid-back riffs. It’s a carefree and fantastical song that captures the quintessential swing, playfulness, and panache of Guaraldi’s Peanuts scores.
Like “Little Birdie,” A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving trades the moody piano of Guaraldi’s most celebrated score, A Charlie Brown Christmas, for exuberant brass and buoyant Clavinet, drawing on the growing funk movement of Northern California in the early 1970s. The soundtrack represents the pinnacle of Guaraldi’s jazz-funk output, but it has never been released in full outside the television special—it could only be found scattered across compilations. A new 50th-anniversary edition presents the entire score for the first time, with remastered tracks and an array of outtakes that highlight the pure joy of Guaraldi’s most boisterous music.
To realize these upbeat songs, Guaraldi assembled a brass- and rhythm-heavy ensemble who brought heavy chops and a flair for experimentation. Drummer Mike Clark is a pioneering funk musician who worked with Herbie Hancock; his broken rhythms give the music its sprightliness and sense of cool. Trumpeter and arranger Tom Harrell and trombonist Chuck Bennett make the brass section sound as big as a marching band. Guaraldi stretches his own limits, picking up the guitar—not his primary instrument, by a long shot—and using Clavinet and Fender Rhodes to add quick-stepping flair.
Together, the quintet managed a lot with very little. On “Thanksgiving Interlude,” for example, 30 seconds are enough to capture a whole world of mischievous, elastic groove. Guaraldi would often revisit and tweak themes in his Peanuts scores, and with Thanksgiving, he and the quintet take low-key cues and transform them into uproarious reworks. That penchant for reinvention is most prominent on “Linus and Lucy,” the quintessential Peanuts song, which is sped up and filled out with a full brass section, wandering improvisations, and an ecstatic trumpet riff; here, it sounds loud and bright, fit for a holiday bash.
This complete version of A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving also provides a revealing glimpse into Guaraldi’s methods. The back half of the record is full of alternate takes, bonus mixes, and reprises that show how the musicians put the building blocks together. Across the seven versions of “Thanksgiving Interlude,” for example, the same beat makes up the backbone, but it’s a little slower here, or with a little more cymbal there. In one take of “Thanksgiving Theme,” Guaraldi gets upset that he “keeps blowing” it and bangs out the melody on piano like a Beethoven étude. Guaraldi’s Peanuts scores are beloved in part for their unflappable cool; the clip offers an endearing behind-the-scenes glimpse at the composer breaking character (and channeling Schroeder while he does).
And while Guaraldi’s Peanuts music might be remembered for its wintry melancholy—“Linus and Lucy” aside, of course—A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving reminds us of the full breadth of his scores. Much of Peanuts’ lasting impact boils down to the expansiveness of Charles M. Schulz’s vision for his characters. Neither the comic strips nor the TV specials ever stuck to just one mood: They jumped from madcap moments to pensive ones, offering an unusually grown-up take on the contradictory, mercurial rush of feelings that defines childhood. The genius of Guaraldi’s scores was the way he mapped the many emotions that erupted in a Peanuts comic strip, and on Thanksgiving, he shows them all.
